A significant conference took place in Paris to honor International Women’s Day. Mrs. Dominique Attias, Chair of the Board of Directors at the European Lawyers Foundation, highlighted the plight of numerous female political prisoners enduring harsh treatment under the Iranian regime due to their association with the Iranian Resistance.
She condemned the United Nations for legitimizing the regime through engagement with Iranian state officials and failing to hold them accountable.
In acknowledging the leadership of women within the Iranian Resistance, Mrs. Attias commended both male and female members for their progressive stance in selecting a female leader. She emphasized the importance of supporting women leaders within the Resistance and their capacity to assume leadership roles effectively.
Furthermore, Mrs. Attias addressed the deceptive tactics employed by Tehran to undermine the credibility of the Iranian Resistance, targeting European nations and institutions. She urged vigilance and awareness in countering these sinister agendas.
A translated version of Mrs. Dominique Attias’s speech follows:
Last year, we were in Brussels. Today, we are in Paris, alongside the women of the Iranian Resistance Council. 365 days of struggle, a drop in the ocean for these women who, for over 40 years, have fought for justice, and freedom for women, and the Iranian people.
Over 40 years of exile, tireless struggle by these generations of Iranian women who demand justice for their 30,000 murdered in 1988, who demand freedom for their sisters remaining in Iran, freedom for these enslaved young girls and women, freedom for these girls deprived of education and forced to marry lecherous old men.
They are now joined by their sisters from within who cry out, “Women, life, freedom!” “Women, resistance, freedom!” echo the women of the National Council of the Iranian Resistance.
This cry transcends the years and the walls of prisons. Listen, listen to Maryam Akbari Monfared, can you hear her from the depths of her cell shouting “Resistance!”
On December 30, 2023, she began her fifteenth year of imprisonment. She was 31 when she was arrested, she is 46 now. She was taken to the city’s prison, the sinister city’s prison, on December 29, 2009, at midnight, without being able to say goodbye to her three incarcerated daughters, solely for seeking justice for her four brothers and sisters, cold-bloodedly executed by the clerical regime in the 1980s and during the 1988 massacre.
For those who are unaware, one of the executioners of the time is called Ebrahim Raisi, now the President of the Islamic State of Iran. Shame on the UN for hosting this assassin, shame on Western leaders for shaking the bloodstained hands of this tyrant.
13 years later, resistance, also cries out for Azam Gholami-Zahab, sentenced last September 4 to 16 years in prison for being in contact with the Iranian People’s Mujahedin Organization, the PMOI, whose members I salute today. Also condemned following a summary trial, while she had already languished for a year in prison, arrested at the height of the October 2022 protests.
Both are incarcerated with common law convicts contrary to international law, mistreated, harassed, and, whatever the cost, faithful to their commitments. They have our admiration. Let us support them in their struggles.
How many are there in Iran suffering the same fate, yet never bowing their heads and surrendering to this murderous regime? How many are you, daughters and women of the Iranian resistance in France and around the world, also sacrificing your well-being, and your family lives, for an ideal to which you have dedicated your lives?
To restore sovereignty and freedom to the Iranian people. You want neither Shah nor Mullah. Heirs of an ancient Iran, where women have always fought tyranny. You follow in the footsteps of those who, like in 1906, over a century ago, at the beginning of the constitutional revolution, took to the streets, armed, to fight the oppressor of the time.
Nos remerciements @najatvb pour sa présence Ô Combien précieuse et son éloge émouvante à la lutte des femmes d'#Iran et notre gratitude aux soutiens inestimables et constants @MAlliotMarie @BetancourIngrid @AttiasDominique pic.twitter.com/gQ7ztV7LOu
— AFIF (@femmiran) February 26, 2024
You had the courage and modernity with enlightened men by your side, whom I also salute. You had the courage and this great modernity to choose a woman as your leader, Mrs. Maryam Rajavi, who for so many years has advocated equality between women and men in modern Iran.
She has advocated for it for a long time. Give Iranian women back the place they deserve. You did it, Mrs. Rajavi, in exile, by putting women in charge of all the gears of your movement.
The Shah mistreated Iranian women to force them to uncover their heads. The Mullahs do the same to force them to cover up. An eternal and futile quest for men to assert their power over women. Today, the Mullahs tremble, no longer know how to control this groundswell that you, Iranian women, embody, and which will sweep everything away. They massacred 30,000 members of the People’s Mujahedin in 1988. They continued over the years, as in 2019, not hesitating to fire on a peaceful crowd, killing 1,500 protesters, unable to silence you.
They are now trying a new stratagem. The latest invention of the mullah regime is to bring to justice those who have been in exile for over 30 years, nearly half of whom are women.
The accusation is an enemy of God and therefore deserves the worst punishment. I cannot help at this moment but think of a popular saying that goes, what a woman wants, God wants. Since it refers to God, perhaps it should be reminded of them.
But let us return to this sinister farce, which is clearly intended to try to discredit the Iranian Resistance and its members with European countries and institutions. After convictions that will not fail to be pronounced. What contempt for our European leaders to believe that they can be manipulated in this way.
Once again, the Mullahs discredit themselves and ridicule themselves to face the indomitable force of Iranian women. To what extremes is this regime not reduced? Eleven years ago, Mrs. Rajavi, during the celebration of Women’s Rights Day, you reminded me, and I quote, they were tortured by the thousands, they were executed by the thousands, but they did not bow their heads.
The observation is the same today. Alone, facing a Western world so timid, Iranian women stand up to the enemy from within. No torture, no prison wall, not even death will make them flinch. They know they will triumph.
Tomorrow, the day after tomorrow, in a year, or more, it does not matter, of course, they will triumph. And until victory, until victory, we will be by their side to cry out,
“Women, resistance and freedom.”
